Floodplain Meadow Restoration
Nature Recovery Network runs the Thames Valley Wildflower Meadow Restoration Project (TVWMRP)in partnership with Long Mead Foundation. TVWMRP is a community-driven initiative that aims to connect up the fragments of ancient floodplain wildflower meadow along the Thames (of which only 4 square miles remain in the UK) by restoring or re-creating the intervening meadows to create a continuous meadow network.
In 2026 TVWMRP was selected as one of 15 “Strategic Projects” to drive Oxfordshire’s Local Nature Recovery Strategy (LNRS) - the only community-driven, landscape-scale nature recovery project selected!
Diversity emerging on our community restoration meadows in 2026
Since 2020, we have connected up over 600 acres of ancient and restored meadow on the Thames around Swinford, by creating meadows in between. Our neighbour to neighbour approach has meant that a continuous wildlife corridor is already forming up and downstream from our base at Long Mead Local Wildlife Site. We have now leased just over 120 acres of land for direct community restoration.
Planting out hand-propagated plants at Christchurch Meadows
We are also working on creating a meadow network along the Cherwell River in Oxford. In July 2020, we undertook the re-creation of Christ Church Meadows, using seed from Long Mead. (Runner up for Oxford University's Vice Chancellor's Award for Sustainability in 2023). In July 2021 we extended the floodplain meadow restoration, opposite the Marston Meadows Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) on the Cherwell River by restoring 10 acres of meadow for Merton College. In 2024, we helped Oxford University Parks to restore another 1.5 acres close to Music Meadow. We are currently supporting Magdalen College and Lady Margaret Hall College to create meadows on their land along the Cherwell.
Part of our restoration programme includes propagating slow-growing and rarer species by hand. This part of the project brings together the whole community including the Scouts, the Schools, the Beavers and our social farming participants (adults with learning disabilities and autism) as well as people facing physical or mental health challenges. The group has grown organically since 2020 and we now find that we are also benefitting people with a wide range of mental and physical challenges. Twice a week, we all come together to propagate by hand the thousands of rare plants that we plant out in the meadows that we are restoring. We have wonderful long-term partners in FarmAbility, Bridewell Gardens and Oxford Preservaton Trust whose participants join us in this.
In December 2020, we won a grant from Ecover in partnership with Open University and BBOWT, (UK winner of 770 applicants from three countries). We are restoring 123 acres for this project. As part of this project, the Open University is studying carbon sequestration in floodplain meadows under restoration. Our first three years' data suggest that they may be as good as peat bogs at storing carbon.
The Thames Valley Wildflower Meadow Restoration Project was featured in Rivers to Coast, a documentary made for COP26 by Oxford University's Nature-Based Solutions Initiative (watch from 2mins 20secs).
Part of our restoration programme includes propagating slow-growing and rarer species by hand. This part of the project brings together the whole community including the Scouts, the Schools, the Beavers and our social farming participants (adults with learning disabilities and autism) as well as people facing physical or mental health challenges. The group has grown organically since 2020 and we now find that we are also benefitting people with a wide range of mental and physical challenges. Twice a week, we all come together to propagate by hand the thousands of rare plants that we plant out in the meadows that we are restoring. We have wonderful long-term partners in FarmAbility, Bridewell Gardens and Oxford Preservaton Trust whose participants join us in this.
In December 2020, we won a grant from Ecover in partnership with Open University and BBOWT, (UK winner of 770 applicants from three countries). We are restoring 123 acres for this project. As part of this project, the Open University is studying carbon sequestration in floodplain meadows under restoration. Our first three years' data suggest that they may be as good as peat bogs at storing carbon.
The Thames Valley Wildflower Meadow Restoration Project was featured in Rivers to Coast, a documentary made for COP26 by Oxford University's Nature-Based Solutions Initiative (watch from 2mins 20secs).